All the Game 1 winners in Round One of the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs can take heart: They’re only one win away from the Conference Semifinals.
All the Game 1 losers in Round One can also take heart: Mostly dead is still slightly alive.
We’ve still got a long way to go to get to the next round. And all 16 teams can envision what it would mean for their team to advance.
- We’re telling you, you should have been paying attention already.
Normally, a 56-point New York City FC team that entered the playoffs in as good of form as anyone in the league would have gotten a lot more attention. Normally, 56 points is good for a top-four spot and legitimate contender status. This year, the Eastern Conference is so stacked that the Pigeons have felt like more of an afterthought.
However, if you kept a close eye on them down the homestretch, you might have picked up on the fact that they’re legitimately dangerous. NYCFC faced an absolutely punishing post-Leagues Cup run that featured eight matchups with playoff teams over their final 10 games. They earned 1.8 points per game over that stretch. If you want to add in their Game 1 win over Charlotte to the pile, that’s 1.91 points per game over their last 11 games, with nine against playoff-caliber opponents. Over the course of the season, that’s a 65-point pace.
A series win would be a continued confirmation of what we already know: NYCFC can compete with the best teams in the league. It will be past time to start paying close attention.
- When Wilfried Zaha is here, so are our title chances.
Charlotte are trudging uphill now. Things admittedly already felt a little dire with their star No. 10, Pep Biel, out injured for the rest of the year. But, down 1-0 to a hot NYCFC side and heading to The Bronx, the confidence Charlotte’s absurd second-half form inspired is starting to slip away.
The good news, though, is that the arrival of Game 2 signals the return of Wilfried Zaha. The Crown’s DP winger missed out on Game 1 after a…misguided red card on Decision Day. He may not have changed the outcome in Game 1, but he wouldn’t have hurt Charlotte’s chances. Now that he’s back in the lineup, you can at least imagine a world where Charlotte are able to flip the game state in their favor early and settle in defensively. With reigning Goalkeeper of the Year Kristijan Kahlina in great form, they’re built to cling to a lead.
If they can pull off the comeback, it would point to Zaha as a missing ingredient for playoff success. If he can stay on the field, then Charlotte’s defense can carry them to the very end. After all, we’re talking about a team that won nine in a row earlier this year. They’ve proven they can get hot and stay hot.
- Everyone’s told us our game model won’t work in the playoffs, but here we are.
At this point in the year, you’re probably clued into the Union’s whole deal. To briefly recap, they jettisoned longtime coach Jim Curtin this offseason in favor of Bradley Carnell and a return to a more direct, Bully Ball style of play. It worked out pretty well. The Union lifted their second Supporters’ Shield of the decade.
But the concerns about an Energy Drink Soccer-adjacent game model that aims to do some murders in midfield when out of possession and then get the ball forward as rapidly as possible have never been centered around regular-season performance. To put it bluntly, there’s a reason the New York Red Bulls made all of those playoff appearances and lifted none of those MLS Cups.
The Union are trying to break the mold here. Not only in the broader “hyper-direct teams don’t win MLS Cup sense” but in the more micro “Philly’s stuff didn’t work against great teams this year” sense. The Union went 6W-7L-3D against playoff teams and earned just two wins in 10 games against Eastern Conference playoff sides that weren’t Chicago and Cincinnati.
A series win against Chicago then wouldn’t wholly acquit the Union of the accusations. But at this point, every win is an act of defiance towards Matt Doyle. They’re the rare Shield winner that can play with a “No one believes in us” ethos the rest of the way.
- What if we’re not a year early?
To be very clear, you don’t see many eight seeds as good as Chicago. This is a side that put up 53 points and scored more goals than everyone but Inter Miami. No team to finish eighth in their conference has ever finished with more points.
Still, because the East is so stacked and because it’s year one of Gregg Berhalter’s tenure as head coach and CSO, it’s always felt like the year before the year for the Fire. They’ll be a popular pick to finish near the top of the East next year based on the simple idea that even modest defensive improvement will be enough to make them a 60+ point team.
But what if next year is now? They pushed the Shield winners to the brink in Game 1. Storming back to win the series would be a heckuva statement. At that point, everything is on the table for Chicago.
(And even if they don’t pull it off, c’mon. They’re at least a little “just happy to be here.”)
- Well, that’s out of the way at least.
The atmosphere around this Miami side in tournament settings is… tense. The bottom line is they haven’t gotten the job done since the first Leagues Cup in 2023. They’ve tended to explode in relatively spectacular fashion. Case in point: the last time we saw them in the playoffs… well…
A win over Nashville would feel both like a baby step and a huge relief. They’ve still got plenty of work to do afterward if they’re going to reach their obvious goal, but, man, at least they didn’t have to go through that again.
The tension isn’t going to be fully released, though. It will be teams as good or better than Nashville the rest of the way. And anything but a title is a bust. Pressure is privilege, right?
- We’re winning the whole thing.
Nashville already have a trophy under their belt this year. Regardless of what happens in this series, it’s been an outstanding season. They insta-shedded the Murderball label in B.J. Callaghan’s first full season as head coach, watched forward Sam Surridge turn into a bonafide Golden Boot presented by Audi contender, and tied their club-best mark for points. Drawing Inter Miami in Round One is just a tough break.
That doesn’t mean they’re cooked. They have the firepower to pull off back-to-back wins and complete the upset. They just may not have the confidence right now. That would change at speed if they won two straight. At that point, they’re immediately as dangerous as any other team in the competition.
Nashville have struggled down the stretch here. But don’t forget, at their best, they’ve played some of the best ball in the league this season. A series win would make it feel like they suddenly have a little magic in them. That’s all you need for a playoff run.
- What, like it’s hard?
Same as it ever was for San Diego this year. They immediately figured out how to win regular-season games in MLS. Like the playoffs were going to be overwhelming for them? They’re too new to this to know better, and that makes them ungovernable. It all comes naturally.
- Yeah, we don’t know how we did it either, might as well go win the thing.
The Timbers have been predisposed to finding lightning in a bottle in tournament settings for a while now. Under Gio Savarese, they made it to MLS Cup twice and earned an MLS Is Back trophy. None of those teams were particularly spectacular.
Admittedly, they were certainly better than this current side, but there’s at least precedent here for the club as a whole. If the axe gets some momentum, it can do real damage. And a comeback series win against the best expansion team of all time would certainly qualify as a momentum boost. At that point, there ain’t nothing else to do but go win some more.
- Let’s get to the real thing.
The Whitecaps have nothing else to prove. They’ve completely shaken their label as a team that can’t compete with the best of the best… but that’s not going to stop them from having a chip on their shoulder as they start to face the true contenders in the West. Narratives tend to stick around, after all.
That seems likely to start with Son Heung-Min, Denis Bouanga and LAFC in the Conference Semifinals. Shrugging off an FC Dallas side that didn’t find their footing until the back end of the season would be the warm-up for the boss fights to come.
- Look at us now, Lucho.
The entire homestretch of their season has felt like whatever the opposite of a love letter is. Ever since Lucho Acosta got shipped out, they’ve been one of the better sides in the West. If they were able to pull off an improbable comeback after getting boatraced in Game 1, it would be perhaps the ultimate act of winning the breakup. Everyone knows you’ve gotta hit the gym, delete social media, and go out and beat the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.
There’s also probably plenty to be said about this being proof of concept for first-year head coach Eric Quill and what they’re building toward in 2026, etc. etc. But the other narrative is way more fun. And, honestly, the “proof of concept” narrative should already exist anyway. This would just be a bonus.
- Revenge feels good (and so does stuffing the nerds into a locker).
First and foremost, there’s the obvious storyline here that a Hell Is Real playoff series win at least partly chips away at the pain of the 2023 Eastern Conference Final. Nothing will ever fully heal that particular wound, but it’s at least some narrative neosporin.
Then there’s the less obvious plot point where Cincinnati continue to reject the very idea of math beyond the final scoreline. All year, the Garys have earned one-goal wins — I count 17 (!!) of them, including their Game 1 win — while they’ve laughed in the face of the xG gods.
If they can vanquish the Crew and their match winners are all match-winning at the right time, they’ll be just like any other Eastern Conference team that pulls out a series win. They’ll fully believe they can win a title.
- Darlington Nagbe’s got one last dance in him.
There may only be one game left for one of the league’s best-ever players. Darlington Nagbe is set to retire after winning four MLS Cups, two Campeones Cups, a Leagues Cup, and a US Open Cup. If the Crew can turn things around against Cincy, they should start remembering pretty quickly that they have the guy who just wins things on their side for one last ride.
That might not be enough in itself to overcome the loss of DP attacker Wessam Abou Ali and DP attacker Dániel Gazdag’s poor form, but it can’t hurt. Besides, we’re still talking about Wilfried Nancy’s Columbus Crew. It feels like they could find their spark at any time. Back-to-back wins to ruin the lives of their biggest rival might be all they need to get back to being their best selves.
- Yeah, what Vancouver said.
It would be nothing but a complete disaster if they crumbled against Austin after going up 1-0. LAFC will be immediately ready to start fighting up a weight class or three. The Whitecaps will likely be waiting for them on the other side, fully ready to give LAFC the battle they’re looking for.
- No idea how that worked, might as well keep doing… whatever it is we did?
Austin are down 1-0 to maybe the hottest team in the league in a year where they’ve made it to the playoffs with a -8 goal differential and fewer goals than anyone else in the conference. You can view that as “Oh, yeah, they’re doomed,” OR you can choose to be brave and see it as an indication that nothing really matters, and they can go ahead and win anyway, just because.
Which, hey, if they go ahead and win anyway, just because, there’s no reason they can’t keep going ahead and winning anyway. They’ll be buzzing if they pull off the upset (and quick to throw this all back in the faces of anyone who doubted them). Maybe that’s all it takes to go on a run?
- Ok, yeah, this game model is going to work in this format just like we thought it might.
If you’ve heard anything about this Minnesota United side, you’ve heard about the set pieces. That’s for very good reason. They’re freaking excellent at it. And those of us with a refined MLS palette can truly appreciate the beauty of a team willing and able to drag opponents into the lowest levels of hell via long throws, long balls and low blocks.
Of course, it’s tough to set piece and counter your way to MLS Cup. You come up against so many good teams that are relatively capable of breaking down a team that sits deep. Eventually, you tend to lose the bet you make by sitting deep against teams that have enough talent to change the game state in an instant.
At the same time, it’s as good a bet as any if you don’t have the top-end talent of the LAFCs and San Diegos of the world. We’ve seen plenty of teams in tournament play across the sport overstay their welcome through a resilient defensive structure that keeps them needing just one or two breaks a game to keep going in a small sample size format.
The Loons are built to be that team. Maybe more than any other in MLS history. Knocking off the Sounders would just be another bonus data point that says what we already know.
- Are… are we doing it again?
They’re still the Sounders. Even just the slightest hint of tournament success is normally enough to turn them into a side that should terrify the rest of the league. Yes, even without DP attacker Pedro de la Vega available.
Look, they weren’t spectacular in their seven games post-Leagues Cup title. But they still put up excellent underlying numbers over that span. Per American Soccer Analysis, only four MLS teams had a better expected goal differential. They may not be quite as cooked as folks have tended to think.
This is a true “Don’t let them get hot” scenario. If they pull off the comeback against the Loons, there’s plenty of reason, past and present, for the remaining teams to be on very high alert.
